Dagny

Hi. I've been using some drug or another all my adult life. Three and a half years ago I stopped opiates by using Subutex (which I now hate but am still on). But not even a year off narcotics I started using stimulants. All these were Rx meds, prescribed by my doctors. I have fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue (or else the drugs caused me to sink deeper into depression than I normally am. I don't even know what normal would/should feel like.

I have been tapering (sort of) the stimulants over the last week. (At first it was Nuvigil. Then a year ago, when I was in the middle of telling my doctor I couldn't take it anymore he suggested Adderall instead and then I started going back and forth between them and finally using both together.)

I've quit "for good" on my own at least 50 times in the last 2 1/2 years. Thursday (tomorrow) will be my last day. I'm scared to death. Every time I quit I immediately descend into hell and stay there a week or ten days. When that phase is through, I have another spell of almost total apathy and lethargy that lasts weeks. The longest I've made it is six and a half weeks. I always, at some point, can't stand feeling so blank and empty and unmotivated and no energy. I don't know how long that will last-maybe it's forever?

I don't know how to make this time different. My husband uses Nuvugil also and ever since I've been trying to get off it he has been subtly ( and not so subtly) pressing me to keep on taking it. He gets a prescription monthly and would leave a little pile of pills on my end table or hand them to me. Now he says he wants me to quit but he doesn't want to quit himself.

How do I get through the months of tiredness and depression? I've quit several drugs cold turkey on my own but stimulants are different-they leave you unable to even care whether you take a shower that week or not. I've done the whole 12 step thing for three and a half years. I got clean but I was never well or happy. I dont know what to do when inevitably the craving to "feel better now!" hits unexpectedly and overwhelmingly. I mean I know the traditional rules but my heart just know that need to escape the pain takes precedence in my mind over judgment and rationality at times. Somehow it feels like it wasn;t even a decision to use/relapse, it was a preordained event and I got taken along without being asked. I have the thought, the negative consequences seem small and far away while the immediate gratification of going from feeling crappy to on top of the world is right at hand and then I wake up and I'm lback in another cycle of using again.

How do I beak that pattern? I guess that's why I'm here. I need support and I wont get it at home and I have no family. The only programs in my area are 12 step programs and I've been in both options and given it my absolute best effort but still, years later, here I still am.

This time has got to be the last time. I can't take another withdrawal and recovery-it hurts too much. And 35 years of drugs is long enough.

Thank you to everyone.

KickingMyself

I don't know that much about all the drugs you've mentioned, but what I do know is what exactly is normal these days??? If you have reached the point where the pitfalls of addiction far outweigh the "boredom" of sobriety, you are probably in the right frame of kind to truly quit. I didn't realize for the longest time that my need for "fixes" whatever they might be was a sign of something deeper malfunctioning within myself. No amount of drug or high risk behavior is going to fill that hole. You've got to fill that hole one day at a time. Make your life worth living.

Thats what I'm doing. I've only had a pharmaceutical problem for a little over 3 months, but looking back I can follow the yellow brick road that got me here. Thankfully due to my horrid past behaviors I quickly realized what deep crap I was getting myself into. Hopefully, I've caught this early enough that the consequences will be mild.

Welcome back. I hope you find freedom from the prison addiction can be.

finaltime

oh man, where do I start. First off, do you want to be clean? Do you want it bad enough that you will do whatever it takes? If you are ready, and truly ready, you can dig deep enough to find it. I would highly suggest seeking medical help before you do this since you are on a cocktail of things. We can not give nor would give medical advice on here. I just found that after 10 years of playing around with opiates, I just got sick and tired of being sick and tired. And being broke!!!!!!! I am at 5 months clean this month, and nowhere in the clear. Sounds like you know how much work it is going to take, and you do have the will power. Dig deep, go through the sickness, after that is done talk and talk and talk more about your feelings. Or if you do not like to talk, write. Attend meetings, live in meetings, whatever it is going to take. If you want it bad enough, you will get it. I know you have the power!!!!!!!!! Sounds like you are also tired of the pill chasing lifestyle. Amazing how those little things can grab onto you and never want to let go. Hang in there!

Dagny

Thank you for answering. I hope, I pray I'm there. I'll know more after I get through w/d-starts tomorrow except for one small half-a-dose pill for a quick &dirty taper.
Pls help me stay motivated. The long, long haul is wwhat gets me every time so far.

KickingMyself

You can do this. Just remember, many have done it before you and there will be plenty after. Keep at it, dont give in. Good luck!

Dagny

I'm still here and I'm still using stimulants. I've "quit" several me times since I wrote the last post. I have an appt with my psychiatrist tomorrow and I want to tell him everything and just put this in someone else's hands - I'm in over my head and past the point where U can do this on my own. My husband more wants me to quit but hasn't quit himself and I am too burned out and too sick and exhausted to take care of myself so I can't leave even if I had anywhere to go. And its an 18 year marriage. He will quit if I do, I believe. But I can't. I can't describe what it feels like during the first two weeks- I have tried but there aren't any words in English that convey the horror I feel every day when I wake up , it lasts for hours and it goes on for weeks. It us do intense it makes me vomit sometimes - the intensity of the pain and and fear and shame and terror and depression and despair.

I did recently find out there is a physical problem in my brain. I have a tumor in my pituitary gland that is secreting huge amounts of prolactin, the hormone that makes men want th fall asleep after sex. But I don't know if that is responsible for the depth of the pain in withdrawal and for the fact that after two months clean I still have to drag myself to get off the couch. And feel so flat and dull and dead instead with not energy and not a spark if interest or motivation or pleasure in life anywhere. I can hang on through the painful part, unbearable as it us, I know it isn't permanent. But I've never made it to even close to normal and why suffer the first two to three weeks of withdrawal if I'm just going to end up giving up after three months of leaden depression and apathy? I'm sorry to sound so negative. I didn't use to be. I'm just going on past experience add to what recovery feels like for at least two months. If I knew for sure it would go away in x amount of time, I think I could bear it. But it reaches a point where it turns into a marathon and I don't have that kind if endurance in me.

Well, anyway, I'm at least back looking for help and support again. For the few months I've just been coasting, to demoralized to even really try to stop again.

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it. Twelve step groups didn't work well for me- though I was clean for three years years I was deeply depressed all that time (in spite of trying every type of anti depressant in the market, and ended up having to be hospitalized for active suicidal thoughts and planning and had ECT which only helped enough that I could come home - and pick up a new addiction, this one.

patbrat

Hi Dagny, I know you don't feel like it, but to me you sound like a very strong person. It takes guts to want to quit, to want to get back to feeling normal again! I'm very new in sobriety so I can't really give you any really good tips. But I went thru the agonizing feelins of depresson and lethargy,,,and being an active even hyper woman at times I hated it! Not even enough motivation to get up and take care of my bodily needs! Ugh. I started on otc's to get thru that I would talk with your doc before doing anything b/c of the tumor. But I found b12 works great, as well as 1 energy drink a day. My stomach got really messed up on years of opiate abuse so I can't do coffee any more, but red bull and small amts of 5 hr energy really do the trick for me. Good luck to you and God speed in your recovery we're rooting for you.
peace n love to ya